After reflecting a while I popped off a response to one of the journalist. Due to privacy (both theirs and mine) I’m leaving their name out. However I did not want to deprive my readers of the response. Also, I’m starting to make my publication entirely free and will be “unleashing” my past articles too.

My response:

5/21/2025

Thank you for your recent article. I agree that toys do light up a child's life and also provide an educational opportunity for any parent. Too state my conflict of interest I'm one of those parents who did "buy happiness". Looking back it may not have been the wisest choice in parenting. But in your article I would like to point out parenting is a life journey that doesn't end but the end goal at a minimum is a child who can put food on the table and a roof over their head. Second, possibly happiness.

My son recently a graduate with an associates degree and cannot find a job. Any job he can find he cannot afford to move out of his parents house. Not for lack of trying or the "number of dolls" he got when he was a child. My question and challenge to you as a follow-up is to write an article that talks about the entire time-line of a child. Not just the “Barbie phase”. Write an article of a child that grows up, finds a good job. Moves out of their parents home and starts a factory that makes dolls in the United States. Then sell those dolls to children in China so their children can be happy.

If you write that article you will find each stage of that child's life is impossible under the current institutions and world dynamics staged against the Citizens of the United States. From ability to get a job, afford rent and afford an education. But also examine the taxes and hurdles to build factories in the United States let alone export challenges to China. The subsidies their doll factories are getting including slave labor and 7 day work weeks.

Maybe we should have an Uyghur Muslim Barbie doll that makes Barbies. Unfortunately no child will every want that doll because they work 7 days a week and never have time to play.

I look forward to your more rounded journalistic article that examines the entire spectrum of a child's life.

Unfortunately I did take a negative turn with that response. But I do hope the public talks more about the entire journey of a parent raising a child in the United States. I remember the phrase once that my parents, grand-parents and great grand parents always felt their kids were better off than they were. Maybe that’s why they buried them with dolls and other frivolous toys.

Unfortunately I know for a fact the current generation cannot say the same.

Let’s hope for further civil discourse.

Elephant money is a very interesting DeFI project in the crypto space.  In the following text I’m going to go over what I know of the project and highlight the risks and possible potential.  As always this is not financial advice.   I’m providing a service of my thoughts and insight to add to you the reader’s due diligence and research.   I hope you read many more articles than my humble post as you take it all in.  As with all DEFI.  Do not invest what you are not willing to completely lose.  Do your own research (DYOR).
Full disclosure.   I do hold a position in Trunk.  Not going to say how much of course but I am a holder of Trunk and generally follow along in their threads and community.  The community refers to itself as the HERD.  

What is Trunk?

Trunk is a DEFI project headed up by a community of people that has been going on for seven years or so.  The project was developed on the Binance blockchain and recently partially migrated to Solana. Currently it exists on Binance and Solana but the future focus is on Solana.   The project has gone through an evolutionary period over the seven years to mature to what is now a DEFI project based on a capped token (TRUNK) which has a Futures component built into the ecosystem.
The basis of the project is a limited supply of TRUNK and an annuity/futures tool that locks TRUNK into long holding hands.  Thus making it scarcer and scarcer overtime.  Similar to Bitcoin the MATH should make the token continue to go up in price as long as there is consistent or increasing demand.  Keep this thought in mind, “consistent demand”.   We’ll discuss more later in the risk section of the post.
The project has had challenges.   An attack on the smart contract several years ago.  Now mitigated by outside auditing of the contract.  A liquidation attack on the Save.finance TRUNK/USDC lending pool.   I’ll cover more on save.finance in my next article.  Once again this was a learning exercise for the HERD as they have fallen down and gotten back up from their challenges and honed their engine.   The initial pool was set with very aggressive LTV’s which made the pool suspect to rapid liquidation causing an aggressive price drop and sell-off.  While this did happen in July just before the Nashville Bitcoin conference the project keeps picking itself back up. 

| Trunk Price in Solana.   Floor around .25. |  Gecko Terminal

The attack is pretty plain to see on this chart.  What I would like to point to is the upward trend shortly after the attack.   The current downward trend is the air going out of the leverage bubble that was created by Save.finance.  The air continued to go out of the bubble from September to November. With the latest move to basing futures on NFTs that can be traded air is starting to go back in. Once again DYOR.  One theme I see again and again in crypto is that many projects (Bitcoin included) have significant volatility because there are only a few actors.   In Trunk’s case very little amount of money moved the September curve down to the floor.  It will take very little money to move the curve in the other direction.  Before we dive into that let’s talk about Ponzi schemes.

Elephant Money is Not a Ponzi Scheme

If you troll the Internet, Discord, Telegram and so forth many projects including Elephant come up as a Ponzi scheme.  I’m going to refer to this Wiki article on Ponzi scheme’s and then formulate my definition.  Here it is:

”A Ponzi scheme is where money comes in and all the money is paid to prior investors.  The money's gone and there are no assets owned by incoming investors.”

Trunk is an audited smart contract.  When you put money into the Future’s or purchase Trunk you possess something. You possess the Trunk token which is on either the BNB or Solana chain.   It’s not gone.  The Futures liabilities and payout is generated by an appreciating Trunk token.  Trunk works when the price of Trunk goes up either by increasing demand or shrinking supply.  Just like Bitcoin.   Unless you think Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme I suggest you stop reading this article and probably divest out of crypto.    All Crypto needs incoming cash flow.  Shitcoins, Stable Coins, Proof of Work coins and Proof of Stake coins all need incoming cash flow.  If folks stop buying Trunk and the price goes down the Treasury will struggle to pay its liabilities.  It’s about cash flow.
Why I think Trunk is a good project is the community around it and its constant commitment to DCAing over time into the Trunk Token.  Combined with the lock up of Future’s and the continuous strong hands holding Trunk the MATH overtime just works.   Constant or increasing demand and constant or shrinking supply is a great formula.
I’ve been digging into this project over a few months and I have some more insight into why I think this project is very undervalued.  Let’s dig.

The HERD is made up of several individuals who form a core of the group.  They are all DCA’ing into the project overtime.  In July just after the liquidity attack I was able to attend the Elephant Rooftop Party in Nashville at the Bitcoin 2024 conference.   My wife and I had a great evening and got to talk to a lot of folks in the HERD.  Both old and new members.   As in all things crypto the group was definitely made up of a lot of people disenchanted with the current banking system.   They are all very much into the project and the community.   All of them had the advice to not put your life savings into Elephant Money.  Be a responsible investor and do your own research.  Many of them took a lot of time to explain the project in detail and were very open about the project.  Overall a lot of honesty from a very committed group.  

Looking at both sides of the coin.  

The project hinges on its founder and primary developer.  BankTeller (BT).   BT is a very open person and very committed to the community.  If you DYOR you can find his real name.   He doesn’t hide it.  BT’s resume is impressive.  MIT graduate, Fidelity, Bitcoin and other early DEFI projects.  He’s been in the space and has both a strong network in DEFI as well as investment and individual investors.   

Risks

As with any great opportunity there are always risks.   One potential risk which is also a great advantage: a lot of the project runs on BT.  He definitely makes the HERD and the project go.  He is also a singular risk if “god forbid” something were to happen to him.  The governance body (Savana Haus) has been working with a legal team to create a sustainable organization since they have recognized this risk.   BT’s presence though is still a risk and a great asset at the same time.
Elephant Money used SAVE.finance to highly leverage Trunk in early 2024.  In July Trunk experienced a sell off which triggered liquidation in SAVE.  Which piled more gas on the fire and caused a crash.   After rebuilding and using Savannah House to unlock the pool so everyone could be made whole Savannah House restructured the pool and locked out third party liquidators.   As Trunk continued to fall through the third quarter 2024 the pool became locked.   Leverage can be a great tool but also a two edged sword.  However locking up liquidation to make the leverage one sided can contribute to a bank fail.  Or in this case a “pool fail”.  The project will come back from this event but it will take time.   Right now I would say you are looking at a very discounted asset that could go up significantly in a two year time frame.  IMHO.  But do your own research. There is a lot of risk in these waters. As of this writing (November 2024) Elephant is still recovering and paying off the debt but the pool in Save is still locked. Folks are earning a decent APY (8%) but the funds are locked until borrowings are repaid. I’m working on an article on DEFI lending sites which I will post in a month or two.

Leveraging risk caused a great upswing in Trunk but also lead to a significant drop in price due to save.finance leverage.

Recently at Investfest 2024 in Atlanta BT led a bunch of HERD members and had a booth in a central location at the conference.  Some deals did come but the price of Trunk continued to slide. In October 2024 Elephant Money started to focus on partner projects and used the HERD to pump smaller projects which were tied to Elephant Money via Liquidity Pools. While I am not in the inner circle of the HERD the age of the project in DEFI, the overall commitment of the group and the potential network inflow has me believing this is a great opportunity and is seriously undervalued.  Elephant Money overall is a small project.  Like many DEFI projects it takes very little money to swing things in either direction.  

In November 2024 the project shifted to NFTs as a representative of futures. The HERD continues to fill the Elephant Telegram channel with chatter as Trunk continues is rise back from it’s lows. Looking at the prior chart I use that as a gauge of where the token could possibly be if all the other challenges are removed and mitigated.

I’m pretty sure if these challenges are removed the HERD will use DEFI once again to create a rocket to the moon. NFT’s are helping move the rocket to the launch pad.

Stay tuned.

Over the last few years there have been evolving economic systems since the launch of Bitcoin and the evolution of Ethereum and Solana.   Most notably the evolution of DeFi to take on the traditional banking system.  Recently the initiation of DePIN in the Theta, Flux and Helium projects taking on traditional communications systems and traditional hosting infrastructure.  At its core all Blockchain models (DeFI, DePIN, etc) are decentralized and for the most part permission-less.  Free entry and free exit and integration to permission-less open markets and exchanges.

Now a new model is evolving.  It’s being called Web3 Gaming or DeGEN.  Using blockchain to provide exchanged value in open markets and using NFT’s to represent physical assets in a game world that require effort and investment to create.  I’ve spent a few weeks/months/years listening to a lot of podcasts and also playing the game with some “gambling money”.  I have some knowledge and viewpoints to throw at this.  I’ve been an entrepreneur, banker and video gamer.  But most importantly I used to play Eve Online.

Why is Eve so important in this analysis?   Because Eve is a massive MMO game that has been around since 2003 and has a working internal game economy.   Looking at Eve it is easy to see the same mine, construct, build and sell mechanics at play.  The difference is Eve doesn’t have a tie into real world money like Star Atlas does with Solana BlockChain.  Eve also did an economics study with the University of Iceland.   Eventually they hired an economist to oversee their economy.1   Who produced monthly economic reports like a small government.2  Yea it’s that good for us finance and economic junkies.

Star Atlas’ CEO, Michael Wagner, mentioned in a Podcast he sees the game having an ongoing labor component.3  Where people work for the game.  As if that could be considered “work”?  Imagine, after your six months working at a fast food franchise trying to work yourself through college to make $12/hour and be limited to only 20 hours a week due to the corporation not wanting to pay benefits.  You decide to become a miner on the outer belts of Neuno mining Helium.  On Thursday and Friday you join up with your posse and do mining in high-risk areas mining Titanium.  A lucrative metal for component and ship building.  You work when you want to and have a Telegram open with your friends as you chat back and forth.

After several months of making your own money you decide to follow the path of Stede Bonnet and become a pirate.  A gentleman pirate.  Raiding shipping lanes in X-17|Y23.   Arggg.

Is this possible?  Could we see a possible change to the labor market.  Is the world about to turn into Ready Player One?4   And how does that affect the valuation of ATLAS?

Let’s dig deeper.  But first for all those wanting “a pirate’s life for me”: a pirate shanty: 

When I was just a little lad or so me mammy told me

(Away Ho, Away Ho, Away Ho Joe)

That if I didn't kiss the girls me lips would grow a-moldy

(Away Ho, Away Ho, Away Ho Joe)

Away (ho!) Haul away, we'll haul away together

(Away Ho, Away Ho, Away Ho Joe)

Away (ho!) Haul away, we'll haul for better weather

(Away Ho, Away Ho, Away Ho Joe)

I used to have an Irish girl, but she got fat and lazy

(Away Ho, Away Ho, Away Ho Joe)

But now I've got a Bristol girl, and she just drives me crazy

(Away Ho, Away Ho, Away Ho Joe)5

All of Web3 projects including Star Atlas had a big uptick in token price at launch and then a steep decline over time as reality sets in.  To understand that continued drop and when it will reverse as well as could be the possible upside you have to understand Star Atlas’ economy.

What’s important about Star Atlas and EVE is they both do a great job mimicking the real world.   Capital with labor transforms resources into goods and services.  The price of that good and/or services is determined by the market if the market is free and open.  EVE did this incredibly well through its game mechanics.  It created a galaxy which could be explored like Christopher Columbus to discover resources and then exploited like Christopher Columbus and Hernado de Soto.  EVE also set up safe zones of the galaxy and treacherous zones (there be pirates here).   Its algorithm which created an unbounded galaxy of millions of worlds and distributed raw resources such as iron ore, copper ore, titanium, helium throughout.   The game mechanics though distributed the critical resources in the treacherous zones.  Making them difficult to mine thus limiting supply.  Thus the economics of supply and demand which makes critical resources worth more than resources that only require labor and no risk.  

To further instantiate their value the critical resources are required to make the more powerful and efficient assets of the game.  Mining Rigs, Weapons, Ship Types etc.  This in the game mechanics much like the explorers of old establishes dominion, war and leverage of assets.  Star Atlas has exactly this same game mechanic.   Introduced differently but the scarcity, labor and mutual cooperation are exactly the same.  

A long time ago in college during my finance classes I learned several things but the biggest thing I learned:  It takes money to make money.  Money 101.  When you start Star Atlas, any player that doesn’t want to just buy stuff and blow things up will have to have a business plan and be a producer.  Some will just buy stuff.  If they want to race or be in a first person shooter or participate in arena flight combat.   Which is great because they will destroy stuff and then have to buy more stuff.   In either case the buyers will have to bring money into the game.  More on that later.  

Star Atlas mechanics has a very advanced and complex technology tree of various ships, components and sectors where the player has to set up a system, factory and fleet and allocate capital in a mix that is efficient with their dollars and time to earn profit.   Wow.  Just like the real world.  Except in this case you can do it with $100 or $500 or $30,000.  So how does this affect the price of ATLAS?  It’s in the mechanics.  Most of the Assets.  The big ticket Assets (Ships, Crew, etc) can be purchased in USDC or ATLAS on the Solana blockchain.  However the cost of goods and services are all in ATLAS.  Unless you use the goods to make ships which can be sold in USDC or ATLAS you will need ATLAS to make these assets.  You will also need your time and hopefully the time of a few close shipmates also.

Where Star Atlas differs from EVE is not only the blockchain component but the entertainment component.   If multiple players come into the space and need to consume items created by other players this will create a demand for ATLAS.  It will also create a demand for valuable resources which in turn will create war and some awe inspiring battles.  Which in turn will destroy more assets and require more assets to come into the game.  Get the picture?

As I start this substack I’m going to end each piece with kinda a wrap up looking at how an asset is significantly undervalued or what makes up the potential or risks for significant upside to the asset.

ATLAS since launch as I mentioned before went up really fast then down and down over time.   It’s probably at fair market value for what is currently a web based low end graphic game with players mining and crafting resources.  The upside here is the Unreal Engine client the company is currently working on that will tie into the blockchain and thus the economics.  The Unreal Engine could allow you to buy that cool NFT of a hot hover-bike.   Add special modifications.  Paint it with stripes, polkadots, neon lights and go racing!!!!  The Unreal Engine with great game play has the chance to bring in more players to race, mine, craft, explore or fight.  All of which creates demand for ATLAS.   To appropriate price this I’m going to do some comparison with EVE and look at some of the numbers Star Atlas is doing currently.  This should help paint a picture of the potential.

EVE Online reached five hundred thousand (500,000) registered players in February 2013.  In 2024 EVE Online usually has about thirty thousand (30,000) active concurrent players.  That’s a lot of people breaking stuff and making stuff.  The entire time EVE had a decent game client with good graphics that has constantly improved.

In contrast Star Atlas as of August 2024 does not have a decent graphics game client.  As of August 2024 Star Atlas had XXX,XXX players with on average 1,600 players on the web client game per week.  Not a lot but it shows significant interest in the platform.  Also some of the ships range from $200 to $3,000 in the open market.  So of the active 1,600 players there is enough market demand to sustain those prices.   The Unreal Engine release is slated for October, 2024.  Doing a little research it appears the company (ATMTA, Inc) has not had a good track record of releases.   I’m paraphrasing the CEO here.   Too many features, eyes bigger than our screens, slow unworkable apps, bloated feature sets, etc.   Coming from the CEO he definitely understands their challenges.  Which is good.   Let’s be clear though.   They are doing something no game company has done.  Massive MMO using UnReal, Blockchain and running on centrally hosted servers.  They are also essentially a centralized block chain.   If the game server goes down the NFT that represents your ship is worthless.  They’ve also been working on the Unreal client since 2022.

The valuation of ATLAS or its potential valuation all depends on the Unreal Graphic Client.  As of this writing I think the talent in the team, the business experience of the CEO, and the community involvement makes this a seriously undervalued asset at the time of this press.  The Open Source release of the Unreal SDK to Solana creates a game changing ecosystem (pun intended).  If Star Atlas achieves the same popularity of EVE, at a minimum it could be 5,000% undervalued.

Ready to quit your day job and stop stuffing Tacos for the man and mine asteroids?  It’s a pirate’s life for you then!!!   I would start by buying some ATLAS and learn the game system.  Or just invest in ATLAS and hold off on the pirate’s life.  You could turn out to be the next Black Beard.  Lose your ship and your head.   Your head is valuable.  But that ship is a real world Asset!!!!

More to follow and more to unfold.